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Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2019 Venice coverage. An Officer and a Spy opens in theaters on August 8, 2025.

What road should one take when approaching a film like An Officer and a Spy? On one hand, it is a perfectly robust, informative, prestige-y and even timely dramatization of the Dreyfus affair, the infamous late 19th-century political scandal in which a French Jewish soldier was wrongfully imprisoned for treason. On the other hand, it is a story about injustice and prosecution directed by, of all people, Roman Polanski.

So to that first hand: an especially dashing and mustachioed Jean Dujardin stars as George Picquart, the man responsible for pulling the thread from which the Dreyfus scandal ultimately unraveled. Polanski arranges the narrative in much the same way that Mike Leigh did with Peterloo, another film about 19th-century social injustice–and one in which the director carefully set out the names,...

Guillermo del Toro, Jodie Foster, Hikari and Lee Byung-hun are among the names who will be honored at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Tribute Awards on Sept. 7. TIFF announced that these four artists will each be recognized for their contributions to film at the 50th anniversary of the festival.

Alongside these honorees, TIFF also announced that it would host the North American premiere of “No Other Choice,” the latest film from Park Chan-wook. Lee stars in the film, which will have its world premiere at Venice International Film Festival.

Brendan Fraser will serve as the 2025 Honorary Chair at the Tribute Awards. The Oscar-winning actor received a Tribute Performer Award in 2022 when he brought “The Whale” to TIFF. Fraser follows Sandra Oh, who became the ceremony’s first Honorary Chair in 2024.

“I’m honoured to return to Toronto once again and to the TIFF Tribute Awards, this time not as a recipient,...

Mockumentary sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is out in September, and the full trailer has emerged as a reminder.

Update 25th July 2025: Belated mockumentary sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues now – finally – has a full trailer. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are back in their wigs (now greyer) as the hapless veteran rock band, now reuniting for one last gig.

Just as importantly, director Rob Reiner is also back in front of the camera as documentarian Marty Dibergi, who catches up with the ageing rockers as they stumble back out of obscurity in an age of social media and branded merchandise.

Few are likely to expect The End Continues to reach the classic heights of the 1984 original, but that’s partly because so few comedies have. Here’s hoping it’s a fitting send-off for the writers of such rock standards as Stone Henge,...

Stellan Skarsgård is the star who will receive this year’s Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, organizers unveiled on Friday.

He will get to honor “in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the film industry and his remarkable acting career.”

Said the star: “The Sarajevo Film Festival remains unwavering and driven in its aim to highlight subjects of great consequence, underscored by an intense lust for life. I love going there.”

Skarsgård, “a longtime friend of the Sarajevo Film Festival, as well as a curator and one of the patrons of the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation – whose scholarships were awarded at the Sarajevo Film Festival – presented the foundation’s scholarship to Juanita Wilson at the festival’s 15th edition in 2009,” organizers highlighted.

Said Jovan Marjanovic, director of the Sarajevo Film Festival: “It is a true honor to present the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo to Stellan Skarsgård,...

Luca Guadagnino is going to be on the road a lot in the coming months. One day after the Italian filmmaker's latest feature, After the Hunt, joined the Venice Film Festival lineup as an out of competition selection, the New York Film Festival announced that the Amazon MGM-released film will play as the opening night selection of its 63rd edition.

"We are excited to open this year’s festival with Luca Guadagnino’s latest, which confirms his status as one of the most versatile risk-takers working today," NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim said in a statement. "Brilliantly acted and crafted, After the Hunt is something rare in contemporary cinema: a complex, grown-up movie with a lot on its mind that also happens to be a deeply satisfying piece of entertainment."

In his own statement, Guadagnino called NYFF "an arbiter of global cinema," and provided a quick preview of the movie's themes.

“Steve,” directed by Tim Mielants and starring Cillian Murphy, will open the Platform program for the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, the festival announced Monday.

Nine other films will compete alongside “Steve” in the annual section at TIFF, including Farnoosh Samadi’s “Between Dreams and Hope” and Yoon Ga-eun’s “The World of Love.”

The Platform section of TIFF celebrates up-and-coming directors, selecting 10 entries each year from filmmakers relatively early in their careers. One film entered in the competition wins the Platform Award, which comes with $20,000 Cad for the filmmaker.

A small jury selects the annual Platform Award winner. In 2025 (the 50th anniversary of TIFF), the jury will be chaired by Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who won the Platform Award last year for his film “They Will Be Dust.” Also on the panel are the Oscar-nominated actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste (whose latest Mike Leigh collaboration “Hard Truths” premiered in the Special Presentations section at...

Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants’ feature Steve, starring Cillian Murphy, has been added to the Platform lineup for this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

Steve was among nine titles added to the Platform competition Tuesday morning. Those titles are: Farnoosh Samadi’s Between Dreams and Hope, Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani’s Bouchra, György Pálfi’s Hen, Pauline Loquès’ Nino, Bretten Hannam’s Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts), Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Currents, Yoon Ga-eun’s The World of Love, Valentyn Vasyanovych’s To the Victory! and Kasia Adamik’s Winter of the Crow.

The Platform jury will be headed by Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who won the 2024 Platform Award for They Will Be Dust. He will be joined by Oscar-nominated actor, writer, composer and director Marianne Jean-Baptiste, most recently at the festival in 2024 with Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, and Québécois filmmaker Chloé Robichaud, whose Sundance title Two...

Looking for the next Barry Jenkins, Pietro Marcello, William Oldroyd, or Darius Marder? Let the Toronto International Film Festival’s auteur-focused and discovery-minded Platform section help.

Today, the festival has announced its 2025 Platform program lineup, marking the tenth anniversary of the fest’s auteur competitive section, which “champions bold directorial vision and distinctive storytelling.”

This year’s edition features 10 films representing 19 countries. The program opens with the World Premiere of “Steve,” from Belgian director Tim Mielants, starring Tracey Ullman and Academy Award–winner Cillian Murphy. The film is Mielants’ first appearance at TIFF and his third collaboration with Murphy.

Per usual, the section is juried by a three-person team of luminaries. This year, they include Jury Chair and Spanish film writer, editor, and director Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who won the 2024 Platform Award for “They Will Be Dust.” He is joined by Oscar-nominated actor, writer, composer, and director Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who was...

All blind optimism and sunny smiles, Sally Hawkins’ radiant school teacher, Poppy, was a delight in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. But wasn’t there a part of us that found her unwavering chirp-and-cheer disposition annoying? Pathological, even? “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” snarled Poppy’s repressed driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan), and it would seem Danny and Michael Philippou were taking note.

In Bring Her Back, the Australian twins behind award-winning horror-comedy videos on YouTube (as RackaRacka) and 2022’s electrifying possession movie Talk To Me have cast Hawkins as affectionate, ditzy foster mum Laura. A former child-care worker and counsellor, Laura’s recovering from the loss of her own daughter when she takes in teenager Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired younger sister Piper (Sora Wong) after the death of their single father. Laura’s grief perhaps explains why she goes overboard with the warm-hearted welcome,...

Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa is set to preside over this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival jury while Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle, actor Dragan Mićanović, writer-actor-director Emanuel Pârvu and writer-director Ena Sendijarević are all set as jury members.

Loznitsa has directed 28 documentaries and five feature films, including his Cannes competition debut title My Joy and Donbass, the latter of which earned him the Best Director Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand. In addition to presiding over the jury, Loznitsa will present a retrospective of his work at Sarajevo.

Tuttle is currently director of the Berlin International Film Festival, which she has headed up since 2024. Prior to that, she was festival director of the BFI London Film Festival and BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival. She also led the Directing Fiction program at Nfts.

Serbian actor Mićanović has credits that include Barking at the Stars, Coriolanus and Rocknrolla. He’s been...

Mix in a dash of Mike Leigh and a sprinkling of Hitchcock suspense and you have an approximation of the atmosphere of this odd couple tale from Paul Andrew Williams who previously gave us the noir drama London To Brighton and revenge thriller Bull.

It starts off amiably enough by describing the mundane existence of 80-year-old Elsie (Brenda Blethyn almost unrecognisable from her Vera persona) and her neighbour Colleen (Birdman’s Andrea Riseborough) who offers to help after social services fall far short.

Both women share a common bond in that they have been consigned to the fringes of society yet seem to rub along - Elsie doesn’t like to make fuss, while Colleen’s precise motives remain unclear although it’s doubtful if she is purely altruistic in her intentions.

The performances of double Oscar-nominated Blethyn and Riseborough provide hypnotic accounts of their characters as two vulnerable souls...

Cannes 2025 festival-goers put their stamp of approval of Harris Dickinson the filmmaker, with his directing debut “Urchin” winning the Fipresci prize out of Un Certain Regard. What can’t the “Babygirl” and “Triangle of Sadness” and “Beach Rats” and “The Iron Claw” actor and future John Lennon star do?

A favorite of IndieWire’s Screen Talk podcast and Chief Film Critic David Ehrlich, “Urchin” seemed primed for a major scoop out of Cannes alongside other actor-turned-filmmakers.

Alas, it took two months since the festival’s end for rising distribution outfit 1-2 Special to step in and buy Dickinson’s film for North American distribution. Starring Frank Dillane as an unhoused, drug-chasing drifter in London, and in the vein of Mike Leigh’s “Naked” in terms of toxic emotional candor, “Urchin” follows Mike (Dillane) as he tumbles through a cycle of addiction, self-destruction, and London’s correctional system. In addition to the Fipresci prize,...

The BBC documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone breached one of the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines by failing to disclose a child’s connection to Hamas, a report published on Monday has found.

The corporation came under fire in February when one of the 13-year-old subjects in the film, a young boy called Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was found to be the son of Hamas’ deputy minister of agriculture.

The BBC pulled the doc from its streaming service, BBC iPlayer, and apologized for the “unacceptable flaws” in airing the program. It said at the time that production company Hoyo Films “assured [the BBC] that no payments were made to members of Hamas or its affiliates, either directly, in kind, or as a gift”.

A review by Peter Johnston — independent of BBC News and current affairs — was ordered and made available on Monday. The review team identified and considered 5000 documents from a 10-month production period,...

Mix in a dash of Mike Leigh and a sprinkling of Hitchcock suspense and you have an approximation of the atmosphere of this odd couple tale from Paul Andrew Williams who previously gave us the noir drama London To Brighton and revenge thriller Bull.

It starts off amiably enough by describing the mundane existence of 80-year-old Elsie (Brenda Blethyn almost unrecognisable from her Vera persona) and her neighbour Colleen (Birdman’s Andrea Riseborough) who offers to help after social services fall far short.

Both women share a common bond in that they have been consigned to the fringes of society yet seem to rub along - Elsie doesn’t like to make fuss, while Colleen’s precise motives remain unclear although it’s doubtful if she is purely altruistic in her intentions.

The performances of double Oscar-nominated Blethyn and Riseborough provide hypnotic accounts of their characters as two vulnerable souls on the edge -.

Luxembourgish actor Vicky Krieps says Jim Jarmusch’s new feature, Father Mother Sister Brother, was never designed as a Cannes campaign. “It’s cinema that is not trying to impress,” she told audiences while collecting a Festival President’s Award at Karlovy Vary. Her remark follows the picture’s unexpected absence from this year’s Cannes slate after early trade chatter tipped it for the main competition.

Reports indicate the film was first declined by Cannes, briefly courted for a sidebar, then dropped entirely. Krieps framed the back-and-forth as irrelevant, stressing that Jarmusch “just shoots the film he wants, then lets it travel,” a stance matching his long-held disinterest in festival maneuvering.

Shot quietly last year, the triptych stars Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, Krieps, and Tom Waits. Industry watchers link its Cannes exit to a crowded American lineup and persistent whispers about running time. The episode has revived discussion about perceived gate-keeping on the Croisette,...

Japanese chirashi for La chimera. Designer unknown.Totting up the most-liked posters on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram over the first six months of 2025, the surprise winner, with over 4,000 likes on one day, was a Japanese chirashi for Alice Rohrwacher's La chimera (2023). I put its popularity down to the Josh O’Connor fan base, or for the film itself, though it is a lovely, colorful design. The second and third places, with over a couple thousand likes each, went to two designs that I posted in tribute to David Lynch upon his passing in January: the original poster for Eraserhead (1977) and a beautiful Japanese poster for The Straight Story (1999). There are actually three Japanese posters in the top four, number three being a zippy design for Charade (1963), which I posted in April in celebration of what would have been its director Stanley Donen’s 101st birthday. And the one-sheet...

The actor on working with Mike Leigh, death by disco ball and drinking on the job

Has your northern accent helped or hindered your career? Eluned51

They do call a group of actors a “moan” of actors. We like to have a good moan. When people hear a regional accent, they immediately make assumptions about your class, financial status and education. People generally think if you’ve got a strong regional accent, you can’t do much else. Obviously there are amazing actors like Jodie Comer who smash that to pieces because people don’t realise she’s from Liverpool. But because I came out the traps with the northern accent it’s probably helped.

Do you ever suffer from impostor syndrome and think: “Why are people so fascinated by me?” RealEdPhillips

I don’t ever think people are – I think they are generally quite bored by me! Of course I have impostor syndrome.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we discuss Mike Leigh, one of our greatest living filmmakers. Born in England in 1943, Leigh remains an artist for the everyday person more than most. And this descriptor is quite reductive, as the writer/director’s aesthetic is deceivingly simple and incredibly effective. Our B-Sides are Life is Sweet, Career Girls, All or Nothing, and Peterloo. Our guest is Alex Heeney, Editor-in-Chief of The Seventh Row, co-author of Peterloo in Process, and host of the Seventh Row Podcast. They’ve covered several of Leigh’s films on the podcast, including Naked and Hard Truths.

Heeney also put together a short guide just for our listeners! It features a standout 2024 release that’s flown under the radar—with characters as rich...

Films by Richard Linklater, Oliver Laxe and Joachim Trier are among 53 titles selected by the Munich International Film Festival for its four main competition strands CineMasters, CineVision, CineRebels and CineCoPro.Munich runs from June 27 to July 6.

CineMasters

Oliver Laxe’s Sirat will be joined by another two Cannes 2025 Official Competition titles - Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Mascha Schilinski’s award-winning Sound Of Falling - to screen in the CineMasters competition for the €15,000 CineMasters Award. The prize is being sponsored for the first time this year by Dorint Hotels & Resorts and is presented to the director of the best international film.

Spoiler Warning: This interview contains plot details, including some spoilers, for Celine Song’s “Materialists,” now in theaters.

“Celine Song Summer,” as decreed by Charli Xcx at Coachella, officially commenced with the release of the Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s sophomore movie “Materialists.”

And Song is embracing her title as one of the queens of cinema during this hot weather season — especially given that her directorial debut, “Past Lives,” also hit theaters in June on its way to grossing $42.6 million at the box office and earning two Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture. “Materialists” got off to a hot start at the domestic box office, too, with an impressive $12 million debut.

“It’s a perfect time for romantic films,” Song tells Variety via Zoom early Friday morning, before the box office receipts started rolling in.

Summer’s great for falling in love, the filmmaker reasons, because then by Fall you...

Celine Song’s romantic dramedy “Materialists” opens from A24 in what we hear are about 2,800 theaters in the U.S. this weekend — majorly more screens than Song’s debut “Past Lives,” which opened two years ago in four theaters. Strong social sentiment and positive reviews initially set the stage for a possible $7 million opening, but A24 could be looking at another fast-rising hit on its hands if the movie opens above $10 million, which is entirely possible.

On this week’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio dish on what needs to happen for “Materialists” to sustain potential early success — especially as Dakota Johnson, with co-stars Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal at her side, delivers another viral press tour with candid thoughts on “Materialists,” plus “Madame Web” and Hollywood’s drive for repetition and remakes.

Elsewhere on the podcast, we make some early Emmy...

A challenging film to both review and market without spoiling, Paul Andrew Williams’ Dragonfly largely succeeds because it never quite telegraphs where it’s going until its third act. My thoughts are with the distributor that eventually picks up this film and has to decide what kind of trailer to cut for a work that largely spends its runtime as a straightforward social-realist story centered on the loneliness of neighbors. Those familiar with the output of writer-director Williams (including Bull and London to Brighton) will know better than to expect a traditional drama about working-class England in the vein of contemporary Mike Leigh and Ken Loach––even if Williams certainly can pull it off as well as those masters for his first half.

Of course, excellent casting helps, and Dragonfly works well because of the sympathetic performance of its leads, including the great Brenda Blethyn (perhaps best-known stateside for her...

In the UK, working-class cinema has been enjoying a renaissance, from Rocks to indie goldies like Scrapper, Pretty Red Dress and Girl. Mike Leigh is firmly back with Hard Truths and Harris Dickinson’s Urchin has freshly premiered in Cannes. Like the latter, Daisy-May Hudson’s debut fiction feature film Lollipop is about homelessness, and — courtesy of its discerning, heartrending script — anchored deep in the young writer-director’s own experience.

Hudson’s film knows all the ins and outs of the brick-wall bureaucracy of the social-care system, which it makes brutally clear from the outset. An automated recording lets us know that Molly (Polly Sterling) is calling her children from inside prison, contrasted with Molly herself reassuring the youngsters that it’s just a few more sleeps until she will see them again. Cut to three days later, Molly — aka the eponymous Lollipop —waiting outside the prison gates, no family or kids in sight.

From a dark and death-haunted classic by Mike Leigh to Tom Cruise’s final highwire stunt and Timothée Chalamet’s brilliant embodiment of Dylan we rewind six months of sensational cinema – in order of their UK release date

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Adaptation of Colson Whitehead novel is an intensely moving story of two friends trapped in a racist reform school, told with piercing beauty by RaMell Ross.

Tribeca film festival, New York

Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough, along with a very alarming dog, are superb as two neighbours thrown together by their neglected circumstances

Twenty years ago, Paul Andrew Williams announced himself as a smart new British talent with his ferocious gangland picture London to Brighton, and his creativity has continued in film and TV ever since. His new film is a haunted, social-realist drama with elements of Mike Leigh but also moments of thriller and even horror. Williams isn’t shy of stabbing us with an old-fashioned jump scare towards the end, which in fact challenges the audiences with its refusal of categorisation. There are two superb lead performances from Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn and an outstanding supporting turn from Jason Watkins.

Dragonfly is about loneliness and alienation and about the eternal mystery of other people, the fear of intimacy and the unknowable existence of urban neighbours.

Kent Sanderson has been promoted from president to CEO at Bleecker Street following the death earlier this year of Andrew Karpen.

“Andrew set a powerful example in which the filmmaker always comes first, the theatrical window is paramount, and great filmmaking is celebrated and championed,” said Sanderson. “All of us at Bleecker are committed to honouring and carrying that vision forward, and while the company will continue to evolve and grow, his legacy will always remain an inherent part of our DNA.”

Los Angeles-based Sanderson, one of the most insightful minds in the independent film sector, joined Bleecker in 2014 when...

Bleecker Street has elevated Kent Sanderson to CEO, succeeding the company’s co-founder Andrew Karpen who died in April from brain cancer.

With Sanderson’s promotion, Bleecker Street’s long-time executive Tyler Dinapoli has been named president and chief marketing officer while Rachel Allen has been upped to executive VP of publicity.

Sanderson and Dinapoli have been with Bleecker Street since its inception in 2014. Karpen, a former CEO of Focus Features, established the independent studio with a mission to make movies for adult audiences. The company has released roughly 70 films over 10 years, including “Logan Lucky,” “Captain Fantastic,” “Trumbo” and “Sasquatch Sunset.”

Sanderson was elevated to president in late 2023 and previously served as Bleecker’s head of acquisitions and ancillary distribution. In his prior role, he led the acquisition of Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Logan Lucky” and Gavin Hood’s “Eye in the Sky” while overseeing...

Bleecker Street said Tuesday that it has promoted president Kent Sanderson to CEO, taking on the role previously held by company founder Andrew Karpen, who died in April after a battle with brain cancer.

Tyler Dinapoli has been named President and Chief Marketing Officer.

Both Sanderson and Dinapoli have been with the company since its inception in 2014 and have been key in shaping the distributor’s slate and strategy.

Bleecker Street

In addition, Rachel Allen who has been raised to from SVP, Publicity to EVP, Publicity.

“It is my honor to lead Bleecker Street into its second decade. Andrew set a powerful example in which the filmmaker always comes first, the theatrical window is paramount, and great filmmaking is celebrated and championed,” said Sanderson. “All of us at Bleecker are committed to honoring and carrying that vision forward, and while the company will continue to evolve and grow, his legacy...

Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino is this year’s recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award to be bestowed upon him during the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, which will also feature a retrospective of his films that will be screened as part of the fest’s “tribute to” program.

The honor and tribute will be “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of cinema,” Sarajevo fest organizers said on Tuesday. Sorrentino will also hold a masterclass and “share his thoughts on contemporary art in a conversation with the audience,” they noted.

“I am deeply honored to receive this prestigious recognition and grateful for the attention given to my filmography,” said Sorrentino. “I look forward to being with you in Sarajevo. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The fest highlighted the effect the Italian director and screenwriter’s oeuvre has had on audiences. “Paolo...

A very special Film Stories podcast episode, as Walter Murch talks editing, the Droid Olympics, AI, The Conversation and much more…

Multi-Oscar-winning editor, sound designer, writer and editor Walter Murch joins Simon for a very special episode of Film Stories. Walter’s just released his latest book, Suddenly Something Clicked, and it’s packed full of advice, plus stories from his extensive career.

In this long chat, the pair talk about the Droid Olympics, The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola nearly poisoning him (!), and an unusual project with Mike Leigh. There’s a lot more too…

Image: Beatice Murch, Cc.

The post Podcast | In conversation with Walter Murch appeared first on Film Stories.

Simon Mein, a stills photographer for over 30 years including on many Mike Leigh films, has died aged 68.

British photographer Mein died on Sunday, May 25.

Having studied sculpture at Exeter University then worked as an assistant to British photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, Mein began working regularly as a stills photographer in the 1980s, on films including David Lean’s A Passage To India, Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy and Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society.

He began working with Leigh on 1990’s Life Is Sweet – the first of 12 features on which the duo collaborated, including Naked, Secrets & Lies, Mr. Turner...

The 2025 edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival is falling into focus.

The third installment of the festival — scheduled to take place in Valletta, Malta from June 21-29 — has reeled in a jury that includes filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), Oscar winning production designer Rick Carter (Avatar), costume designer Charlese Antoinette (Air), set decorator Elli Griff (Napoleon), production designer James Price (Poor Things), Maltese director Mario Philip Azzopardi (Zos: Zone of Separation). The jury will determine the recipients of the Golden Bee Awards, a list that will be unveiled at a gala, on June 29.

The Mediterrane Film Festival, which is under the direction of a new creative team in festival director Ray Calleja and curator Mark Adams, features three pillars of programming: main competition (films from across the Mediterranean), out of competition (global selections) and Mare Nostrum or Our Sea (films dedicated to sustainability and environmental themes). The latter’s jury includes Grainne Humphreys,...

At IndieWire’s annual “Screen Talk” live podcast at the American Pavilion in Cannes, Neon CEO Tom Quinn returned to share his Oscar whisperer secrets after his victory lap on “Anora,” which won the Palme d’Or last year followed by five Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Actress, Editing, and Original Screenplay. Quinn is the talk of Cannes because, as anticipated, the movie he acquired at last year’s festival, Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” starring Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve, is the frontrunner for the Palme.

While Quinn talked about the four films he brought to the festival (listen below), after our podcast, he acquired three Competition titles: Jafar Panahi’s family drama “It Was Just an Accident,” Brazil’s popular entry “The Secret Agent,” from Kleber Mendonça Filho, and Oliver Laxe’s tragic French-Spanish production “Sirât,” which polarized many Cannes watchers. Even if these four Neon titles don...

When you’re a film critic who sees film after film and reviews them over the course of a busy festival, there can be a tendency to leave yourself out of the picture in order to prioritize being more analytical and detached about what it is you’re seeing. There is no doing that with actor Harris Dickinson’s debut feature “Urchin.”

A drama about a man who goes from living on the streets of London to trying to start his life over again and break free from the stranglehold of addiction after a stint in prison, it’s the first film where the final moments made my breath catch in my throat as I began to tear up at Cannes this year. This is no small achievement. It’s the type of moment that serves as a testament to just how confidently written and directed it is as it...

It’s not difficult to guess at some of the influences absorbed into Harris Dickinson’s raw character study, Urchin — the bleak nihilism of Mike Leigh’s Naked; the unvarnished realism of Ken Loach; the immersive textures as well as the loose-limbed vitality of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What; the subjective realism, grubby poetry and surreal interludes of Gus Van Sant’s early films, Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho.

That’s not to say the English actor’s feature directing debut is derivative or doesn’t reveal his own voice. Any first-time filmmaker capable of distilling his inspirations into a highly personal portrait of the kind of life on the edges of society he has clearly observed firsthand is a talent.

Dickinson’s protagonist, Mike, is an addict trying — with fluctuating degrees of commitment — to break the pattern of self-destruction that seems baked into his DNA.

While the words “trauma” and “grief” are often overused when discussing the horror genre, writer/directors Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou delivered an interesting twist on the concepts with their astounding directorial debut “Talk To Me,” which explored acceptance and obsession in a haunting manner. The brilliance of “Talk To Me” was in its specificity, as the Philippo brothers were able to create a unique vision in which “speaking to the dead” was made into a tangible plot device. “Talk To Me” wasn’t just impressive as a small, independent project that made use of its limited resources; it was also genuinely surprising how graphic, and often cynical the duo allowed themselves to be with a debut feature.

Their follow up film, “Bring Her Back,” is even more disturbing on a visceral level, its ability to unify the original mythology with compelling characterization leaves something to be desired. “Talk To Me...

While the words “trauma” and “grief” are often overused when discussing the horror genre, writer/directors Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou delivered an interesting twist on the concepts with their astounding directorial debut “Talk To Me,” which explored acceptance and obsession in a haunting manner. The brilliance of “Talk To Me” was in its specificity, as the Philippo brothers were able to create a unique vision in which “speaking to the dead” was made into a tangible plot device. “Talk To Me” wasn’t just impressive as a small, independent project that made use of its limited resources; it was also genuinely surprising how graphic, and often cynical the duo allowed themselves to be with a debut feature.

Their follow up film, “Bring Her Back,” is even more disturbing on a visceral level, its ability to unify the original mythology with compelling characterization leaves something to be desired. “Talk To Me...

Hey, remember one review ago when I said death sucks? Grief makes it worse.

Danny and Michael Philippou’s sophomore feature, “Bring Her Back,” is their second film about the misery and danger that comes from never letting go of the dead. Their first, “Talk to Me,” was an alarmingly assured debut, a truly frightening tale about a mourning teenager who abuses a mysterious relic to reach out to her dead mother. “Bring Her Back” is a film about a mother with her own grotesque method of dealing with the death of her daughter. They are similar films. They are not the same.

“Talk to Me” is a malevolent slumber party movie, a cautionary tale in which teenagers defy the rules and pay unholy consequences. “Bring Her Back” is also about a teenager, Andy (Billy Barratt), whose father dies unexpectedly. He wants to raise his younger, visually disabled sister, Piper...

Apart from the reflex response to a jump scare, the purpose of almost any horror movie is to disturb you. Yet if you’re a junkie for horror films, you can build up a tolerance to that sort of thing. It can be rare to encounter the kind of horror movie that genuinely creeps you out, that gets under your skin, that troubles your dreams. But “Bring Her Back,” the second feature by the Australian YouTube horror-comedy pranksters-turned-filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou (“Talk to Me”), qualifies as a majorly disturbing piece of horror.

The film, set in suburban Australia, is a domestic nightmare, and it is also, at moments, a bit of a hallucinatory free-form shambles. But you can’t separate the two. The old-school classicist in me wishes that “Bring Her Back” were more tidy and logical, but the Philippous work in a mode that’s impressionistic in an...

So much of modern horror is entwined with the twin serpents of grief and trauma, but the way filmmakers rely on distancing effects or project a tone of ironic detachment onto their characters often prevents the horrors at the center of their works from truly resonating. That detachment, not to mention the propensity for metaphor, endemic to the works of so many of horror’s most promising luminaries in recent years can be probing and evocative, but really it exists to allow audience to look at tragedy from a safe vantage point.

With Danny and Michael Philippou, however, you’re in the bleeding thick of it. That was as true of Talk to Me, the Australian twin filmmakers’ feature directorial debut, as it is of their follow-up, Bring Her Back, an unreservedly soul-sick portrait of grief that comes from a place of such inflamed, naked vulnerability that it becomes almost unbearable to sit with.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)

Brady Corbet’s long-gestating architecture epic looks and feels as painstakingly crafted as its lead character’s intricate architectonics. For as barren and minimalist as László Tóth’s (a terrific Adrien Brody) designs are, they pack a beautiful, mysterious, occasionally revelatory punch, much like Corbet’s winding three-and-a-half-hour (complete with built-in intermission!) story about a Hungarian architect who immigrated to New York after WWII only to be mentally and emotionally sucked in by the tide of a momentous decades-long project initiated by a ruthless Pennsylvania business tycoon. Its scope is enormous––almost impossible not to get wrapped up in. A sense of impending gravity gives this film the weight of the real, as if we’re witnessing history.

The Cannes world premiere of Sepideh Farsi’s documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” turned into a moving tribute to its protagonist Fatma Hassona, who was killed by an Israeli missile just weeks earlier.

An emotional Farsi fought back tears as she introduced the film and afterwards held aloft a photo of Hassona.

Hassona, a 25-year photojournalist who based in Gaza, was killed with her family by an Israeli missile that targeted her building in April, just a day after the film had been selected for Cannes.

In the film, it was revealed that Farsi and Hassona had spoken about the possibility of her leaving Gaza and attending the festival.

On the first day of Cannes, Hassona was named in a letter signed by more than 370 industry figures that condemned her death and also criticized “silence” from the cinema industry over Gaza.

Signed by names such as Mark Ruffalo,...

Joaquin Phoenix, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Pascal, Riz Ahmed and Guillermo del Toro are among a group of figures to have added their names to a letter condemning the film industry for its “silence” over the ongoing and deadly impact of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The letter, published on the first day of Cannes and initially signed by more than 370 actors and filmmakers, also condemned Israel’s killing of Fatma Hassona, the protagonist of festival-bound doc “Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk.”

The new signatories also includes the likes of Rooney Mara, Jim Jarmusch, Omar Sy, Peter Straughan, Camille Cottin, Michael Moore, Boots Riley and Alice Rohrwacher.

The letter urged cinema — which it said was a “breeding ground for socially committed works” — to use its art form to “draw lessons from history, to make films that are committed” and to be “present to protect oppressed voices.”

The...

A group of more than 350 international actors, directors and producers have signed a letter published on the first day of Cannes condemning the killing of Fatma Hassona, the Palestinian photojournalist and protagonist of the festival-bound documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” in an Israeli airstrike.

The letter, signed by names such as Mark Ruffalo, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, Melissa Barrera, Yorgos Lanthimos, Javier Bardem, Hannah Einbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Leigh, Alex Gibney, Viggo Mortensen, Cynthia Nixon, Tessa Ross and many more, also called out the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ for its “lack of support” for “No Other Land” co-director Hamdan Ballal.

Just three weeks after winning the Oscar for the documentary, Ballal was assaulted by settlers and kidnapped by the Israeli army. After being criticized for its silence over the incident, AMPAS eventually publicly apologized. “We are ashamed of such passivity,...

Every year since 2014, we’ve made the directors portfolio the centerpiece of our Cannes magazine. This year is by far our biggest, pushing the total number of filmmakers who’ve appeared in the portfolio past 200. In that time, we’ve photographed Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders, Bong Joon-ho and Mike Leigh, Pedro Almodóvar and Chloé Zhao — 10 Palme d’Or winners, including the last three in a row, and nine Oscar best director winners.

Every

The post Cannes 2025 Directors Portfolio: Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson and More | Photos appeared first on TheWrap.

More than 350 film world figures, including Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Javier Bardem, have published an open letter on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival condemning “silence” over the deadly impact of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

The letter, published on the website of France’s Libération newspaper on Monday evening, was headed “In Cannes, the horror Gaza must not be silenced”. It was addressed “For Fatem”, in memory of 25-year-old Gaza artist and photojournalist Fatima Hassouna.

The young woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike in mid-April just 24 hours after it was announced a documentary exploring her life in the Gaza Strip would world premiere in the Cannes. Ten of her relatives, including her pregnant sister, were killed in same strike.

“She was a Palestinian freelance photojournalist. She was targeted by the Israeli army on 16 April, 2025, the day after it was announced that Sepideh Farsi’s...

More than 600 actors, directors and journalists have signed an open letter to BBC Director-General Tim Davie demanding immediate scheduling of Gaza: Medics Under Fire, a documentary on healthcare teams operating amid conflict in Gaza. The appeal, coordinated by UK Screen Industry and the Britain Palestine Media Centre, features names such as Susan Sarandon, Mike Leigh, Harriet Walter and Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum.

Originally set for a January broadcast, the film was held back while the BBC examined Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, another documentary withdrawn after revelations about its narrator’s links to Hamas. That review began in February and remains unresolved.

Letter authors argue that the delay of Gaza: Medics Under Fire reflects political interference. “Every day this project is postponed, the BBC shirks its duty to inform audiences and to honour those who risk their lives to save others,” the letter states. Among the...

Big names including Susan Sarandon, Mike Leigh and Harriet Walter have signed an open letter to the BBC urging the corporation to cease “the censorship of Palestinian voices” and air a documentary about medics in Gaza.

The documentary has been delayed while the BBC investigates events surrounding a separate show, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, after that show was pulled due to links between one of the narrators and Hamas.

Gaza: Medics Under Fire was created by a team including ex-Channel 4 news boss Ben de Pear and the team said last week that the screening had been delayed.

Today’s letter, which is also signed by Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsay Hilsum, Game of Thrones star Indira Varma and actor Miriam Margolyes, said: “It’s hard not to conclude that the BBC’s gatekeeping is rooted in racism. The message is clear: Programmes about the ongoing genocide,...

Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, acclaimed filmmaker Mike Leigh and Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum are among more than 600 prominent figures who have signed an open letter urging the BBC to broadcast the delayed documentary “Gaza: Medics Under Fire.”

The letter, addressed to BBC director-general Tim Davie, expresses “deep concern about the censorship of Palestinian voices” and calls for the immediate release of the documentary, which follows medical workers in Gaza. The signatories include 130 anonymous participants, with more than a dozen identified as BBC staff members.

“Gaza: Medics Under Fire” was produced by an award-winning team including Emmy and Peabody recipients Ben de Pear, Karim Shah and Ramita Navai. Originally scheduled to air in January, the documentary has been “indefinitely delayed” despite reportedly undergoing “rigorous editorial scrutiny” and multiple fact-checks.

“This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression,” the letter states. “The BBC has provided no timeline, no transparency.

Irish filmmaker Brendan Canty’s debut feature Christy will open the 24th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Romania’s Cluj-Napoca on June 13.

The coming-of-age-story had its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus section where it won the section’s Grand Prix for best film.

The film will be launching TIFF’s new competitive section, Teen Spirit, dedicated to exploring youth culture through fiction and documentary films, with the winning film being decided by a jury made up of local teenagers aged 16 to 20.

The screening of Christy on Cluj-Napoca’s Unirii Square will be preceded...